Hi Katie and welcome to MWC.

“In knowledge, nothing new is possible, and what you know is the universal, the general law.” Northrop Frye


That means life is a cycle that repeats itself over and over again, and it is all subject to a time and place for everything. We do not determine the rhythm of life any more than we determine the beginning or the end of time.

Experience is unique, it is alway different and it cannot be duplicated and in that sense, it is unlike knowledge, which involves the cycle of life where nothing is new under the sun -and that is why Northrop Frye said that the most technologically efficient machine that man has ever invented is the book.

We are raising a population which evidently thinks that the most technologically efficient machine is google or the personal computer or the smartphone, but in fact, it's still the book.

That is why most stories have pretty well the same shape. Each story may represent unique experiences, but the sequence of repeated cycles has been consistent throughout human history. Contradictions are too superficial to form any bombastic or dogmatic theory, of the sort that Freud tried to sell.

As Northrop Frye made clear, "Knowledge is something somebody tells you or you tell yourself or regard as your own experience when it has receded into the past and become objective. Experience, when it is being experienced is unique. Experience when it has gone into the past becomes an object of knowledge and so becomes a part of that repeating realm of existence, which is a way of saying there is nothing new. So that every second, you are experiencing the new in a world where there is nothing new."

"Knowledge is always the knowledge of something and wisdom is the sense of potential situations. And so you consult an expert for how to repair a clock and you consult a wise man for what might be the best thing for you to do."

"You can experience the particular but you cannot know it."

And so,it appears that wisdom is the balancing of experience and knowledge and it gets complicated because the uniformity of the past meets the freshness of the present moment.

Finally, to clarify all of the above, don't forget; there are two kinds of reason -there is pure reason that leads us to write books like "The Rise and Fall of Civilizations" and practical reason, which philosophers like Kant defined as the pulsation of experience.

Hi!  I’m just a newbie on the site and have no writer credentials, but I’m a middle-aged high school teacher who likes to read and likes to help other aspiring writers, so here goes:

I like your hook: why the door is toying with the protagonist.

I like that you weave in a little bit about what sort of person our protagonist is gracefully. 

I like how it reminds me of the Twilight Zone and Quantum Leap.

I felt like there was a little too much detail about the building right away, but just for a moment and then it got more interesting right after that.

The visual description of the street stuck with me, especially the mention of fresh paint and curb appeal.  It makes me want to spruce up the outside of my house. 

That’s all I got, hope it helps! 

Hey there!  Happy Friday or whatever day it is when you see this.

I was looking for how to find Beta Readers and stumbled upon this website. 

I'm tinkering with my third draft of a novel.  It's very existential fiction, possibly for preteens or teens.  I wrote it for my daughter who was 8 when I started and is now 13.  I'm a teacher and one of my courses is kind of a seminar about cosmology... what are we, what is reality, what do we ever know, is there objective good and evil and can we know them, do we have free will, do our choices matter, what is the future of our species and our universe... that kind of fun stuff.  I started this novel as a way to embed some of those big life questions in an easier-to-read-than-essays story. 

I also have a blog about my experiences with parenting a special needs child, but I was very enthusiastic about it for a few months and then neglected it for a year.  Doh

I get discouraged sometimes, wondering if I actually have anything to say worth hearing, or in a different way than all the other people who have already said it.  But the written word certainly helped me in my life; the only way I might pay it forward is by learning this craft and giving it an honest, humble try.  And I'm enjoying it as a hobby for the intellectual stimulation, so at least there's that.

Anyway, best wishes to my fellow travelers on the writing journey!

New to the forum from America's "rust belt." Looking for input on some short fiction works and later maybe some cover designs! Glad I found the forum!